places for census API prior to 2010

[mdcruztx]

Hello-- I'm trying to pull ACS 2009 1-year data from the Census for the city of El Paso in Texas. When I attempt to retrieve that data, I get the following error: Error : places is not currently available for years prior to 2011. To request this feature, file an issue at https://github.com/walkerke/tigris.

Do you have any suggestions?

[walkerke]

Hi @mdcruztx! You'll be able to get the data from tidycensus with geometry = FALSE. If you need 2009 place geometries - right now tigris doesn't support them because the URL structure for that year isn't consistent with later years and would need some custom configuration. The TIGER/Line file and the CB file https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/PREVGENZ/pl/pl00shp/pl48_d00_shp.zip would likely work but I'd need to test it. You could use 2000 place geometries from https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2010/PLACE/2000/tl_2010_48_place00.zip, download, unzip, and join to your tidycensus data.

I probably don't have time to support this in the immediate near term but I could put it on the roadmap. I'd also welcome pull requests from users who need it.

[jtrac1]

I'm not familiar with pull requests yet but would also appreciate congressional district shapefiles from 2010. Just letting you know there is other interest here. I'm just learning GIS/mapping in R so I appreciate these tools!